Specifics of Interpretation of Freedom in the Constitution as a Nuclear Genre of Legal Document Discourse

The aim and objectives of the article are to identify the specifics of implementation of the concept freedom determined by the modus-dictum organization of legal discourse and the specifics of the Constitution as its nuclear genre. The study is carried out on the basis of a discursive linguistic world-image, which constitutes and dynamically develops a national-cultural concept. The discursive linguistic world-image is formed by selection of special concepts and their special interpretation based on the purpose of a discourse and the system of values transmitted by it. During the study, the author examined the dictum and modus of a legal document-the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The conclusions of the study are the following. The concept freedom receives a discourse-forming status in legal documentary communication. The specifics of its implementation in the Constitution are determined by the nuclear status of this genre in the system of legal discourse in general and legal document discourse in particular. As a result, the dictum specificity of the Constitution suggests implementation of the concept under study in a significant list of positive and negative social actions and conditions, which is the result of a legal assessment modus. The Constitution implements both the basic modus of legal discourse, that of legal assessment, and the basic modus of document discourse, that of formality. The modus of formality determines equality of all citizens before the law (objectivity) and the obligatory nature of it (imperativeness). Imperativeness as one of the aspects of the modus of officiality in the texts of the Constitution is formed by permissive, prohibitive submodi and the submodus of obligation. At the same time, genre specificity has a special influence on the implementation of the concept under study. The Constitution as the main genre of legal document discourse (and legal discourse on the whole) aims to realize state legal ideology and is designed for a positive perception by all citizens of the country. In connection with this, the prohibitive submodus is rarely manifested in it, and the concept freedom is verbalized with an activation of stylistic pathos. Freedom in legal document discourse is a possibility of a specific action by a citizen or a state body which is fixed by a legal document. With respect to the state body, freedom is mainly activated in the "unfreedom" version. The possibility to use permissions specified by law ("to receive freedom") is given to citizens that abide by the law, which means that they should limit the possibilities of their behavior. That is what distinguishes the discursively determined content of the concept freedom in legal discourse from its content in the Russian linguistic world-image.